and in order to realise it, all that was needed was
that the cock of the gun should rise. The end of it could be pushed
with one's toe, the gun would go off--it would be a mere
accident--nothing more!

Frederick brooded over this idea like a playwright in the agonies of
composition. Suddenly it seemed to him that it was not far from being
carried into practical operation, and that he was going to contribute to
that result--that, in fact, he was yearning for it; and then a feeling
of absolute terror took possession of him. In the midst of this mental
distress he experienced a sense of pleasure, and he allowed himself to
sink deeper and deeper into it, with a dreadful consciousness all the
time that his scruples were vanishing. In the wildness of his reverie
the rest of the world became effaced, and he could only realise that he
was still alive from the intolerable oppression on his chest.

"Let us take a drop of white wine!" said the refiner, as he awoke.

Arnoux sprang to his feet, and, as soon as the white wine was swallowed,
he wanted to relieve Frederick of his sentry duty.

Then he brought him to have breakfast in the Rue de Chartres, at
Parly's, and as he required to recuperate his energies, he ordered two
dishes of meat, a lobster, an omelet with rum, a salad, etc., and
finished this off with a brand of Sauterne of 1819 and one of '42
Romanee, not to speak of the champagne at dessert and the liqueurs.

Frederick did not in any way gainsay him. He was disturbed in mind as if
by the thought that the other might somehow trace on his countenance the
idea that had lately flitted before his imagination. With both elbows on
the table and his head bent forward, so that he annoyed Frederick by his
fixed stare, he confided some of his hobbies to the young man.

He wanted to take for farming purposes all the embankments on the
Northern line, in order to plant potatoes there, or else to organise on
the boulevards a monster cavalcade in which the celebrities of the
period would figure. He would let all the windows, which would, at the
rate of three francs for each person, produce a handsome profit. In
short, he dreamed of a great stroke of fortune by means of a monopoly.
He assumed a moral tone, nevertheless, found fault with excesses and all
sorts of misconduct, spoke about his "poor father," and every evening,
as he said, made an examination of his conscience before offering his
soul to God.

"A little curacao, eh?"